Earlier today, I sat here thinking (a scary thought, no matter what time of day).

All of us here at MyCentralJersey.com have created twitter accounts, where you follow other “tweeps” and hopefully, they follow you back and don’t report you to the nearest psychiatric unit. (Three people thus far have recommended it and I’m taking it under advisement.)

But, what if you have a fear of being followed?

I looked it up online to see what the technical term for the fear of being followed is. (Thank God I didn’t have to travel to the library. I can’t find my library card. For all I know, it’s been revoked.)

I was expecting some term like “followphobia.” But, the result I got when I googled the fear of being followed was simply “paranoia.”

Yeah, well, that’s definitely me. But, I’m thinking it’s a good thing. It would be boring to just have OCD. (I can’t leave the house without checking to make sure the appliances are off, or unplugged, or in fireproof storage. By the time I’m done checking, I’m usually too tired to go out).

I did a little more sleuthing (eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes) and I did find “twitterphobia” in the urban dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com[1]), which it defines as “When you are hesitant to follow someone of Twitter because of the fear that they will not follow back.” (Being obsessive-compulsive, I checked 10 times to make sure I had the right definition).

Close, but no cigar. So, paranoia will just have to do.

I actually have four twitter accounts, although one is deader than Elvis. (Yes, people, he really is dead). As of this writing (or, typing), I’m being followed by 979 people on one of my accounts. Of course, I’m following 2,000 tweeps, and I don’t think any of them are in the mental health profession.

twitter sends me notifications when I get a new follower, but it never tells me who unfollows me. Probably so I can’t send them a direct message and beg them to refollow me. (I have no pride).

twitter caps you at 2,000 followers until you pick up more followers. So, now I’m faced with the daunting task of going through my followers list and see who is actually following me back and who is not. I’m hesitant to unfollow some who are not following me. I don’t want to be responsible for them waking up the next morning, seeing their twitter follower numbers and realizing they’ve lost someone. It could ruin their whole day.

Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid.

But, don’t be paranoid. Follow me on twitter at BradWadlowMyCJ for off-the-wall one-liners (sometimes two-liners). On the serious side, for news-related tweets, follow me at Brad_WadlowMyCJ and BradWadlow_MyCJ.

Article printed from Over the Edge: http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/overtheedge